IoT

Recent past, I had multiple discussions with many tech forums and many people have a misconception about IoT and Cloud. Some think whenever we do something like blinking an LED with Raspberry Pi or Arduino is IoT.

I just thought of sharing some of my viewpoints on these terminologies.

Internet of Things(IoT) – refers to the connection of devices (other than the usual examples such as computers and smartphones) to the Internet. Cars, Home and Kitchen appliances, Industrial devices, and even heart monitors can all be connected through the IoT.

Cloud Computing – often called simply “the cloud,” involves delivering data, applications, photos, videos, and more over the Internet to data centers.

We can break down cloud computing into six different categories:

Software as a service (SaaS): Cloud-based applications run on computers off-site (or “in the cloud”). Other people or companies own and operate these devices, which connect to users’ computers, typically through a web browser.

Platform as a service (PaaS): Here, the cloud houses everything necessary to build and deliver cloud-based applications. This removes the need to purchase and maintain hardware, software, hosting, and more.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): IaaS provides companies with servers, storage, networking, and data centers on a per-use basis.

Public Cloud: Companies own and operate these spaces and provide quick access to users over a public network.Example: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure etc.

Private Cloud: Similar to a public cloud, except only one entity (user, organization, company, etc.) has access. Means the access to the cloud is secured and isolated, only organizational entities have access to this type of cloud resources. A private cloud is owned by a single organization. Private clouds enable an organization to use cloud computing technology as a means of centralizing access to IT resources by different parts, locations, or departments of the organization. When a private cloud exists as a controlled environment within Onpremise data centers.

Hybrid Cloud: Takes the foundation of a private cloud but provides public cloud access. This combination would be established through a secure high-speed VPN tunnel over MPLS or other dedicated lines or extended connectivity gateways provided by the respective cloud vendor. In this mode, your on-premise applications can connect to cloud infrastructure and vice versa. This provides you the flexibility to host your missing critical information in on-premise itself, but also provides you the flexibility to utilize the cloud power, without compromising your organization’s critical data.

Role of Cloud in IoT

Cloud is simply an enabler for IoT. It provides necessary services and infrastructure for things to be interconnected and operate.

Cloud provides all the essential services to increases efficiency in implementing your IoT solutions, accumulate and operate on IoT data. Internet of things requires Cloud to work, I would better define it as Cloud and IoT are inseparable, but IoT is not all about Cloud.

For example,millions of devices connected in an IoT ecosystem would create millions of bytes of data, and you would need sufficient infrastructure to store and operate on these data to create a meaningful result out of it.

Cloud Service providers started realizing the need of providing IoT specific services to customers to quickly enable to create Fast to market solutions. That’s where Cloud and IoT converges. Microsoft has packages all IoT related components into Azure IoT and hence Amazon AWS IoT, similarly the remaining providers such as SAP Hana, IBM Cloud etc. This helps customers from picking necessary components and build their IoT ecosystem in Cloud, or utilize the predefined(SaaS) solutions for quick enablement.

What is the role of Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Dragon board then?

These are single board computer or hardware boards(CPUs) or Microcontroller boards that have sufficient hardware capacity to run a small/complex IoT program on an operating system of your choice.

These boards are typically equipped with your basic storage and computing needs for establishing an IoT device or edge capability. You can write a program of your choice to blink an LED based on your conditions, as they are equipped with digital/analog I/O ports. You can choose from wide variety of operating systems such as Raspebian, Windows 10IoT etc to install on these devices or deploy microcontroller programs depending on the capacity.

This means they are edge devices which you can program for your IoT use case. When deployed to the field together, they would create an IoT network.

Conclusion:

Enough said, IoT is not all about the cloud, but are inseparable in a modern world and whatever you are doing with RaspeberryPi, Arduino Uno etc may not be an IoT unless there are a specific IoT use cases you are not trying to solve using these devices.

Microsoft has come up with a new program to bring in more skilled people to the field of Data Science by providing them the right training on right set of tools.

Microsoft has put together a curriculum to teach key functional and technical skills, combining highly rated online courses with hands-on labs, concluding in a final capstone project. All these trainings will be delivered by Microsoft either online or through recorded sessions.

We all have been hearing the term Data Science and Data Scientist occupation become more popular these days. I thought of sharing some light into this specific area of science, that may seem interesting for rightly skilled readers of my blog.

Data Science is one of the hottest topics on the Computer and Internet nowadays. People/Corporations have gathered data from applications and systems/devices until today and now is the time to analyze them. The world wide adoption of Internet of Things has also added more scope analyzing and operating on the huge data being accumulated from these devices near real-time.

As per the standard Wikipedia definition goes “Data science, also known as data-driven science, is an interdisciplinary field about scientific methods, processes and systems to extract knowledge or insights from data in various forms, either structured or unstructured, similar to data mining.”.

Data scientists use their data and analytical ability to find and interpret rich data sources; manage large amounts of data despite hardware, software, and bandwidth constraints; merge data sources; ensure consistency of datasets; create visualizations to aid in understanding data; build mathematical models using the data; and present and communicate the data insights/findings.

They are often expected to produce answers in days rather than months, work by exploratory analysis and rapid iteration, and to produce and present results with dashboards (displays of current values) rather than papers/reports, as statisticians normally do.

Importance of Data Science and Data Scientist:

“This hot new field promises to revolutionize industries from business to government, health care to academia.”

— The New York Times

Data Scientist is the sexiest job in the 21st century as per Harward Business Review.

With my earlier article Azure in China, it came in to my interest to look for any other country/region specific independent cloud data center requirements. I came across Azure for US Govt(Similar to Amazon Govt Cloud) instance and Azure Germany data center. For this article context I will be covering only Azure in Germany.

What is Azure Germany?

Just like regional regulatory requirements in China, Germany also wanted a completely locally owned/managed Azure Data Center for EU/EFTA/UK requirements. This is also to ensure stricter access control and data access policy measurements. This approach is to enable organizations doing business in EU/EFTA and UK can better harness the power of cloud computing.

All customer data and related applications and hardware reside in Germany

Geo-replication between datacenters in Germany to support business continuity

Highly secured datacenters provide 24×7 monitoring

It meets all Public sector or restricted industry requirements

Follows all Compliance requirements for EU/EFTA and UK.

Lower cost, locally accessible within your business locations in Germany/EU.

“ Azure Germany is an isolated Azure instance in Germany, independent from other public clouds.”

Who controls it?

An independent data trustee controls access to all customer data in the Azure Germany datacenters. T-Systems International GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom and an experienced, well-respected IT provider incorporated in Germany, serves as trustee, protecting disclosure of data to third parties except as the customer directs or as required by German law.

**Even Microsoft does not have access to customer data or the datacenters without approval from and supervision by the German data trustee.

What Compliance?

Azure Germany has an ongoing commitment to maintaining the strictest data protection measures, so organizations can store and manage customer data in compliance with applicable German laws and regulations, as well as key international standards. Additional compliance standards and controls that address the unique role of the German data trustee will be audited over time. Refer to:Microsoft Trust Center compliance.

During Build! 2017 Microsoft has announced the availability of Azure IoT Edge, which would bring in some of the cloud capabilities to edge devices/networks within your Enterprise. This would enable industrial devices to utilize the capabilities of IoT in Azure within their constrained resources .

With this Microsoft now makes it easier for developers to move some of their computing needs to these devices. Edge devices are mostly having small foot print based to high end machines within your company network.

Perform Artificial Intelligence processing at edge device itself. Availability of Microsoft Cognitive Service on edge device would bring in whole lot of automation capabilities. Imagine Alexa/Siri working without internet connection, it should be able to provide you reminders etc.

Perform RealTime Decision making locally based on predefined rules.

Reduce bandwidth costs

Connect to other Edge devices and legacy devices within the constrained/corporate network.

Deploy IoT solutions to Edge Device from Cloud and provide updates as needed.

Operate offline without the need of real-time internet connectivity or intermittent connectivity. Doesn’t have to rely on Cloud to provide commands for processing, can do offline data capture and processing of information from other devices connected and take decisions without the need to rely on a connected cloud service.

Microsoft has today released their IoT SaaS offering for customers and partners called as “Microsoft IoT Central”. IoT Central enables powerful IoT scenarios without requiring cloud solution expertise and also simplifies the development process and makes customers to make quick time to market solutions, making digital transformation more accessible to everyone without overhead of implement solutions end to end.

As per Microsoft :

“IoT Central provides an easier way to create connected products that propel digital business. Take the complexity out of the Internet of Things (IoT) with a true, end-to-end IoT software as a service (SaaS) solution in the cloud that helps you build, use, and maintain smart products.”

Benefits of IoT Central:

Proven platform and technology with enterprise grade security.

Reduced complexities of setting up and maintaining IoT infrastructure and solutions.

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” -Phil Collins

About

Nithin Mohan – A passionate hardcore application programmer, software architect, and technology evangelist with over 13 years of experience in Web, Mobile, and Cloud applications design and development.
A hardware geek, a kick-starter, and a quick learner.

Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way. This blog is to share knowledge, tips & tricks on software development using Emerging Technologies. Thanks to the readers and sincere thanks to all author's of crossposted blogs. Blog is powered by theme gitsta, customized for this blog. Enjoy reading the blog and subscribe to the RSS feed.